


Crimson Days 2021

by samortez



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: CrimsonDays2021
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:09:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29140560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samortez/pseuds/samortez
Summary: Crimson Days 2021 was cancelled by Bungie, and then immediately uncancelled by Tumblr. Here are a collection of short pieces based of prompts by Tumblr users eosofspades and long-boy-in-the-soup.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	1. Heart

It’s cooler than expected in the jumpship. Humans have made ships able to do many things— speed through the expanse of space, fire powerful missiles at enemies, even control it with your mind— but making their insiders as hot as the full summer heat on Earth is apparently out of reach still. Ímólé doesn’t mind too much. She’d prefer the baking sun of where she woke up a Guardian, of course. The sticky heat and the sweat rolling down her skin in her armor. But laying in the pilot’s chair of her ship, under the warmest knit blanket she could find in the Last City’s marketplace isn’t too bad. It could be much, much worse. She thinks about the biting frost of Europa and shivers. At least here, in her ship with her ghost and her blanket and the steady hum of the machinery keeping them in orbit, she can be warm.

It’s enough, she thinks.

Here she doesn’t have to worry about keeping up with the speed of the coming apocalypse, or the speed of older guardians who seem to know exactly what to do at all times, either. Out there, where everywhere you look is a battlefield to be won or to die on, Ímólé feels like the darkness of death is always at her heels. Out there, she watches her fellow Guardians do miraculous things as easily as they breathe. She watches Warlocks float with grace into the air before hurling down a brutal Nova Bomb into hordes of enemies. She watches Hunters’ bodies glow with fire from head to toe, shoots from their Golden Guns ringing out faster than any gun she’s ever held. 

And her fellow Titans? 

Oh, her fellow Titans. She’s seen them rush shoulder first into swarms without a second thought. Seen them punch their way out of the hands of Death. Seen them plummet onto opponents and enemies with enough Arc energy coursing through them that you can taste it in the air. Seen them call upon the void to keep their fireteams safe, or to summon a shield to bash through walls. And she’s seen them hold hammers like hers, bright orange and flaming with Light, and shatter forces as if there was nothing there in the first place. Watching them fills her with an awe and wonder unmatched even by the City itself. Some days, she thinks of herself holding that bright hammer of the sun, or dashing around with Arc, or holding the line with the Void, and her chest inflates just a bit. 

But most days, like today, she thinks of all the things her fellow Guardians can do, and wants to run away into Deep Space. How could she possibly ever be able to do any of those? Being so young— almost three months now— she feels like everyday is her Rez Day, when she stalled in the rusted halls of the Cosmodrome and prayed she didn’t have to go any further. It was just her and her ghost, Òré Kòríkòsún, then. Just his sweet, guiding voice in the crowded darkness. Just the light he gave, the gentle nudge into the sunlight of Old Russia. Back then, he said that he had looked for her for ages. That she was meant for him, and vice versa, and they were made to do wonderful things for all of Humanity. 

“You’re my Guardian,” he said, voice unwavering, unfaltering.

But now, with the Darkness here in the System, with whole planets and moons missing, with the Hive and Eliksni and the Cabal…

Ímólé shrinks into the pilot’s chair, turns herself into a tight ball of blanket, under-armor, and anxiety. There’s no way she can catch up. Everyone has had years, centuries, to become the Guardians they are. They’re legends, heroes, everything Ímólé sits in her ship and wishes she could be. She’ll continue to do what she can, but with every passing day, it feels as if she’ll never be able to do enough. 

She must shrink into a tight enough ball for Òré to notice, because he quietly blips into existence by Ímólé’s head. 

“Ímólé, are you okay,” he asks, mechanical voice filling all of the cockpit.

Ímólé doesn’t answer for a bit. She thinks about her Rez Day, about how sure Òré had been about her. How sure he is, even now.

“How did you know I was your Guardian,” she finally asks.

“What do you mean,” Òré asks.

“I mean,” she pauses, briefly, to shift from her side to her back, and look to Òré. “How are you so sure I’m the right person. There must have been tons of different powerful people who could have been it. Should have been it. Why me?”

Òré’s shell contracts a bit, and he shifts downward slightly in the air. “Oh, Ímólé…”

He moves to rest himself on her belly, blue eye blinking in thought. Ímólé rests her hand on his shell without thought, and the cool metal anchoring her in this moment. 

“You’re right,” Òré says, at last. “ I scanned tons of different souls before I found you. And a good number of them could have made powerful Guardians.”

Ímólé takes a sharp breath, and closes her eyes against the sudden sting of tears.

“But,” Òré quickly continues, “none of them were you. All of them were missing that one thing I finally found in you.”

“And what was that,” Ímólé asks, voice tiny amongst the buzz of the ship.

“Your heart, Ímólé. When I found you, I knew it had to be you because no one had the heart you do. This...drive to do good for everyone around you, even though it scares you. You still try. You get out there, odds be damned, and you fight as hard as you can. And yes, sometimes you lose and you die, but everytime I revive you, you get right back up and try again. Over and over until you win, because you know it will help someone else. You care so much, it’s blinding, Ímólé. More blinding than the sun itself. That’s what I saw, and still see.”

When Ímólé opens her eyes to look at her ghost, her vision is blurred and her face is wet. 

“A-are you sure,” she asks.

“Does Tess overprice Ghost shells to make sure they don’t pile up in the Vaults?”

Ímólé giggles, and Òré moves to whirl his shell in happiness alongside her. And under her blankets, nestled in her ship and the loving eye of her ghost, Ímólé feels warmer than she ever has before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well everyone, meet Ímólé and Òré! Ímólé is a new light Sunbreaker Titan (her name means "light" in Yoruba), and Òré is her ghost (his full name, Òré Kòríkòsún, means something a kin to "closest and deepest friend"). This is my first ever fanfiction, so I hope it came out alright. Unbeta'd, so if there's typos, that's all me.
> 
> Thank you to Tumblr user eosofspades for the first day prompt of "Heart!"


	2. Sun

The first thing Ímólé remembers is the cold. When she first woke, it was early November and the polar winds of the Cosmodrome were only getting colder as winter approached. That cold...a bone-deep cold, so solid she could not tell where it ended and she began. It ran through her completely, an unrelenting bite, before finally being fought back just a bit by the warmth of Solar Òré had given her. It wasn’t enough. She remembers walking in the Russian sun, her best attempts at sneaking around the Eliksni hampered by the constant chatter of her shivering teeth. When Òré had located an old, beat up jumpship, Ímólé prayed that it would give her warmth. And when it did not, she prayed that this Last City her newfound friend described was someplace where the Sun’s heat reached.

It was only marginally better. 

It’s the memory of that cold that drives Ímólé to board her ramsack ship and ask Òré to find her the Sun. 

That is how the wide-eyed pair find themselves just above the Equator, in the continent of Africa. They land on the west coast, amongst the tall ruins of an old Golden Age city, surrounded by water. When Ímólé opens the hatch of her ship, the first thing she feels is the wave of heat. It comes at her like a solid wave from the ocean, all at once and overpowering. She takes just a few steps onto the cracked asphalt of the street and already feels beads of sweat dripping off her inside her armor. The air feels wet here, like if Ímólé breathes incorrectly she might drown in it. She’s too hot and dizzy from it, and the feeling makes her laugh harder than she ever has in her short life.

“This is incredible,” she bellows.

“Ímólé, you might want to take your armor off, you could overheat in it,” Òré says, flying just at her side, shoulder to shell.

“You sure,” Ímólé asks. “We don’t know what’s out here.”

“I’m not reading any life forms, but I’ll keep a scan out, just in case. Besides, fighting we can handle. Sweating so much you pass out from dehydration…?”

Ímólé nods in understanding, and starts to strip herself of her armor. “Where are we,” she asks, as she struggles with her shoulder straps. 

“Old Nigeria, this was the city of Lagos,” Òré says. “When you asked for the Sun, I thought this might be the best place.”

“I think you nailed it, Òré. I don’t think I could find a hotter place.”

“Oh well, there are tons of hotter places on Earth. There are deserts that make this feel like a tundra. In North America, there’s a dry heat that could melt plastic at its peak.”

“Why aren’t we there,” Ímólé asks, kicking her boots off and pushing them into the discarded pile that is the rest of her armor. “Those sound amazing!”

“You know, I think you may be insane,” Òré says.

Ímólé laughs and steps out further into the ruins, barefoot and without armor. She closes her eyes and just stands in the sunlight. She can feel her brown skin baking as what sweat she produces tries to keep up with the heat. Her black hair, braided down to fit inside her helmet, heats up the top of her head. Here, she can still smell the saltwater, and she imagines what it must be like to rush into the ocean waves to cool down. What the saltwater must feel like drying on her skin in this heat. She’s never felt heat like this. The closest she’s ever gotten was the heat of her Solar Light when she holds her Burning Maul in her hands. But that heat was gentle, a soft quilt on a mild day. This heat is oppressive. All consuming. It is the best thing she’s ever felt. 

“The heat isn’t the only reason I brought you here,” Òré says after a long pause.

Ímólé turns to face her ghost then, bringing up an eyebrow as a question.

“When Guardians are reborn,” he starts, “they don’t have a memory of who they were in their past life. But they do remember certain things. Motor skills they had, like bike riding or how to play an instrument. They also remember whatever languages they spoke.”

“Languages?” Ímólé asks.

“Ours names,” he says. “I’ve been researching them for a while now. ‘Ímólé’ and ‘Òré.’ They’re from a pre-Golden Age language called Yoruba. You must have spoken it in your past life, and that’s why it came to you when you named us. This is where that language is from.”

Ímólé takes a steadying breath at that. Looks at the ruined concrete buildings around her. Skyscrapers and smaller apartment complexes. Storefronts and the remains of what must have been an outside patio. She imagines what it must have been like, all those years ago. All the people who looked just like her, bustling around in their own lives. All the sounds of people laughing and yelling and living in this heat. She imagines herself here too. Another her, without the Light, bathing herself in the Sun day after day.

“You think I’m from here,” she whispers to the buildings.

“Maybe. It’s possible, but there’s no way to know for certain. Especially since I found you in the Cosmodrome.”

Ímólé doesn’t say anything for a bit. Just looks at everything she can. Tries to memorize every crack in the pavement, every shattered window. If she cannot remember what this city was like when it was alive, then she will remember it now, to honor its death. And if she cannot remember what it was like to have lived and thrived in this heat, then she will remember what it was like to finally feel it after the cold of Northern Europe. When she finally speaks again, her voice is so soft Òré almost misses it completely.

“I bet it was a good home,” she says.

And in the sunlight and wet heat, Ímólé cannot tell what is sweat and what is tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This went in a totally different direction than I thought it would. I thought this would be more silly times with them, but instead I got...well, you see. Day four's prompt ("sun") is from Tumblr user eosofspades!
> 
> (Also, another totally unbeta'd chapter, so if something doesn't make sense, it's all me, lol)


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